Extended Time Management

I have been putting a lot more effort in with my time management during this project. After the Minor Project module last year I learnt a few things about myself, and one of them was that I am absolutely useless at keeping track of work, by relying solely on my memory. I suppose anyone could have told you that.

This time round though, I have invested more time and effort into my time management. Even researching into good time management practices.
One practice which I believe will help me the most with the project, is breaking individual tasks down into smaller tasks. If I set myself smaller more manageable tasks to complete I will ahve much more success with the project.

I have created a Gantt chart to help keep me on track this year. Though it still needs some work, and some changes do need to be made, such as outlining completed tasks and tasks still not yet complete.

Building Prototype

I have started building the prototype version of my final design. The prototype is based off of a demo created by digital artist Kyle MacDonald, who used the Arduino's ability to use capacitive sensing for human input.

Though the prototype itself is not yet finished, all that really needs doing is in the code. I need to finish uploading sketches to my arduino, as well as test whether or not it runs.
Either way, here are some photographs of what it currently looks like.

I might have "borrowed" some white plastic from Uni, I thought it would look better than brown cardboard.

The 3D space. A 10 by 10 inch cube, lined on the inside with aluminium foil plates. These foil plates will act as the capacitors that will detect when input is being given. The box thing, thats just for my prototype, I want to make my project bigger, and hopefully change my design into a flat, or slightly curved surface. 

Next I put together the wires that would connect the box to the Arduino. After soldering a few shielded wires to some crocodile clips, I attached some 220K resistors to the arduino's 5V power switch, and some 10K resistors to its output pins 8,9 and 10. The 220K resistors will control the power going into the device, whilst the 10K will recieve electrical input from the box when the users hand is present.

So far this is just the build, and not a working model. I hope to have a working model finished soon so that I can give a demo of my project.

Target Audience

The importance of who your target audience are is as important for my project as it would be for a commercial product.
In order to get some feedback about who my target audience are, and what they want, I created an online survey and posted it to various music oriented subreddits, in order to get audience feedback.
The subreddits I posted my questionnaire to were:

• r/wearethemusicmakers
• r/musicmakers
• r/music
• and for extra participants, r/samplesize

The feedback I recieved is vital in aiding me during the design process.
The first set of questions I asked were about who the audience is. I asked for gender and age range, to help me find out who would be interested in using such a project.

Based on the answers from my identifying questions, the target audience for my product is 18-24 year old males.
Though this information is a necessary tool in helping me figure out who my audience is and what they may want. I am not going to design my project exclusively for a male audience, even though they are my primary audience members. I don't believe that making the design unappealing to women would help my project in any way, and designing an exclusively male or "boys toy" would only put people off the use of my project. I want it to appeal to as many people as possible.

After this the questions became a lot more specific to my project, though because I understand the audience have never seen it, I could not go into too much depth.
I asked what kind of music they are interested in, by offering a list of multiple choice music genres.
I understand that I did not include all possible music genres in the questionnaire, that'd be impossible, so I used the major music genres like rock, electro, dance, etc.
To ensure that everyone who took my questionnaire could have their say, I also included an optional "other" box, which asked for a description box to be filled so that I wasn't left with a whole load of answers just left as "other".

 This graph shows that the two top scorers were electronic music, and rock. The closest results to these were largely genres related to these, such as metal, indie, dance and disco.

I asked this question in order to get information about what the users want my project to do. I cant possibly have it output sounds from all genres of music, and need to give myself a place to start. Since electronic music was the highest scorer, I will focus on having the device output a range of electronic sounds, much like a synthesiser.

After this I wanted to know how interested my target audience would be in using my project. Since the places I had posted the questionnaire were focused on people who make music I asked whether or not they do, and if they dont how interested would they be in doing so.

As you can see the majority of people who filled in the survey, do make their own music, but a large proportion still don't. I predicted that many wouldn't since making music is something that requires a lot of time, effort and in most cases money. 

I also asked how many would be interested in doing so, and the amount of people interested is staggeringly higher. This leads me to think about the usability if my project, I need to cater for everyone, or rather as many people as possible. I believe that having my device, be cheap as well as easy to use would draw a lot more out of the audience that it would otherwise. From this I now believe that the project should be a DIY digital instrument, rather than a standalone product, to help appeal the product to as many people as possible. 

I also asked the audience about their familiarity with music interfaces. The reason I asked if it were to create or listen, is because I'm assuming that people understand basic audio lingo, like record, play, pause etc.

But you can never be too sure.

Now, by far the most valuable question I asked was an optional comment box that I included to let the users give their own recommendations and suggestions to aid me in the creation of my project.

I asked whether there were any specific features they would like to see in a Digital Audio Interface, and these responses were by far the most informative.

I received many responses, some better and more informative that others, but still valid none the less.

Here are just a few:

1. As a classical musician and wannabe composer, it's important to have ease of writing music. Sibelius is what I know, and while complete, it's very difficult and time consuming to write things down. So, at the moment, I use pencil and paper. If your platform were easy to use, I would probably switch to yours (although must be very complete too, I write difficult music). A demo first to try out, similar to Sibelius' would be important, otherwise I wouldn't bother buying if I don't know how it's going to be.

2. More connection with physical expression.

3. Reliability. Seriously, there is nothing more frustrating, or embarrassing, when a piece of gear just won't work.

4. MIDI support

5. Retain DAW functionality (main ones for me are digital instrument creation and "sections" that can be strung together or looped.

These responses, to be honest, surprised me. I was not expecting such a large amount of feedback. These responsed have given me much to reflect upon, and discuss during my VIVA presentation. I hope that this feedback will show that there is a genuine interest in ym project from the target audience. I also gave me confidence in my project, that there are people who want to see this kind of project being done, and are willing to offer help wherever they can.

Finally I asked whether or not people were interested in the level of interaction offered by the device. These questions were intended to support my project and show that people were interested in seeing a touchless 3D music interface.

 The results speak for themselves, people are genuinely interested in the work that I am doing, and as a result I am now confident to move forward with the project. I feel that this feedback is vital in helping me make important decisions during the design process.

I now want to put more surveys and connect with my audience more, as I feel that their input is almost as important as my own.

Logo Design

Though this is not the final design for my logo as I will put more time, and creativity into creating the logo used for the final piece. I have started putting together a few logos, to serve as visual aid for my first VIVA.

My project is called scape, like sound scape. I want my logo to represent what my product looks like, as well as show its connection to music.

I have created a few draft logos to help represent this.

This is the first draft of my logo. Since my prototype's 3D space will be a small cube, I have tried to capture this in the shape of my logo. I have also filled it with lines, as a representation of musical wavelines. 

 

This is not my final logo but, I may use elements of this draft in my final design.

Like I said I created this logo purely as visual aid for my first VIVA and more work will be done to improve the logo, as well as user testing to get feedback about what people think about my logo.

Up scalling

The touch less motion tracker that I am going to be implementing into my design at the moment is a 12" by 12" three sided box, through through some research I have found that many people believe this could be made much bigger, or used in a different way.

Some recommendations from digital artist Kyle MacDonald are:

• Build massive sensors
• Optimize the resistors and code for things that vibrate quickly, and use it as a pickup/microphone
• There are probably other tricks for decoupling the system from AC hum (a huge capacitor beteween the plates and the ground?)
• I've experimented with shielding the plates on the bottom, but it only seems to cause problems
• Make an RGB or HSB color picker
• Control video or music parameters; sequence a beat or melody
• Large, slightly bent surface with multiple plates + a projector = "Minority Report" interface

So who knows how big this could become, I am going to continue experimenting, and once a prototype has been built, look into making the project bigger, or as mentioned in project meetings, the size of a whole room? I believe that capturing a person moving around, rather than just their hand, could change the project into a more interactive experience, that allows users to be active with technology, rather than just using it?

Further experimenting

since my project is intended to create music, I want to see what sound capabilities the Arduino has. I found an example sketch of a toneMelody.

I loaded the sketch into the Arduino simulator where the melody of three tones is played at a pre-determined interval.

As you can see here, the box on the right shows the sketch, which tells the arduino at which interval and what tones to play, in the middle is the values of the notes. Each note has its own numerical value, ranging from 31 for B to 4699 for D sharp.

The values at the top of the center box relate to which melody is played. By changing the sketch to load uo one of 8 melodies numbered 0-7 the notes played and time of notes played changes.

The Arduino has the ability to play MIDI sounds through a small speaker, and though this is all that this function is doing i believe that being able to see how the Arduino reads melodies will be useful for my project. I have also uncovered that the Arduino can find and play WMV files from an external storage. This could mean pieces of music, but in  my case I want it to be samples. I also want to look into whether or not it is possible to change what melody is played without having to modify the sketch, if it can be done externally?

In the post!

I have begun ordering tools and materials to start putting my prototype together, once they arrive I will begin constructing the device, and begin experimenting with the Arduino outside of the simulator.

Parts:

• 10KΩ resistors
• 220KΩ resistors
• Alligator clips
• Arduino
• Shielded cable, cut off the ends, cut into (3) 2' lengths
• Aluminum foil 
• Masking tape 
• Computer with Processing and Arduino software installed
• pieces of cardboard (3)

Tools:

• Soldering iron
• Spray mount or a glue stick
• Wire cutter/stripper

As well as these tools I have also Aquired a "Helping Hand" with a magnifier, so that I can be precise when soldering. 

Time Management

Last year I was given a module called the minor project, the point of the minor project was to give me a taste of what is to be expected for the major project.
My project started off well, where i thought i had a great idea and i was going to enjoy putting it together.
Though coupled with a few other influences the project largely failed, and after looking back on the process its easy to see that my time management skills were not up to par for the major project.

Dates regarding how lond I was going to spend on an individual section fo my project were very vague, just stating things like "from now till viva 2 ill be working on this....".
I have realised that this is not an appropriate plan for someone at my level (at the time a second year student), so this is something that I have attempted to improve greatly.
Firstly rather than giving vague examples of what I am going to do and when, I have attempted to breakdown the key tasks involved in my project into as many sub sections as possible. Not only does this help me keep on top of tasks and give me a better guide for what and how much I need to do by when, but it will also help me with my research, by breaking subjects down I can research them in more depth too.

I have begun creating my yearly time management chart, although only in its early stages at the moment, and only focusing on the weeks leading up to my first project VIVA.

I have started putting a Gantt chart together, and started dividing each topic into separate smaller, and hopefully more in-depth subjects. Its still a little sketchy and does need improving quite a bit, but compared to this time in my minor project, my time plan is far more structured. I'm also going to work on planning out the rest of the year, and divide dates into separate days rather than weeks. By doing this I will be able to relate my time management plan to my production blog, and it will give me a good look at how well I'm staying on track. 

Experimenting With Software

I have downloaded the Arduino Software from the Arduino.cc website and have started experimenting with sketches to help teach myself the code.

The software also has example sketches built in that will allow me to see working examples of functions like analogue input and output, sound output and examples of communicating with the Arduino.

(Blank Sketch : Arduino Software)

The software itself seems rather simple to use, with designated buttons for uploading the sketch to the arduino and so on. This image from the book I have been reading "The Arduino Cookbook" explains what each part of the start screen is.

I dont want to go running in head first and get myself into a situation where I have to acquire another Arduino, so to teach myself the basics I have decided to use an Arduino Simulator

I have found an Arduino simulator online available from http://virtronics.com.au/Simulator-for-Arduino.html.

The simulator comes with a handy tutorial sketch to tell you how it works and what you are seeing. There is also a quick tutorial video on YouTube to get you up and running using it.

The idea behind using a simulator is to give myself time to learn the Arduino interface. Learning my lesson from last year's minor project module where i jumped in head first and couldnt rescue my project in any way. 

The first sketch tutorial in "Arduino Cookbook" and the most basic according to forums is the blink function, in which an arduino is used to tell an LED to blink at certain intervals.

I have used a blink sketch with the Arduino Simulator and it looks a little something like this.

The usefulness and importance of a tool like this for my project cant be stressed enough. I am confident that through using and testing my own sketches in the arduino simulator before loading them to my arduino will help me ensure that my project works, without putting any part of the project in danger. 

Learning Arduino

Before starting  a project of this scale I want to know what I'm doing before I do it.
I want to familiarize myself with the language and the development platform before I engage in any work for the final project.

I have found a valuable resource in the book Arduino Cookbook. I say valuable because the opening line of this book states that it is intended for use by everyone, because it does not assume the reader to have any experience with coding languages, let alone the one that this book is about. This is good for me because I consider myself a beginner, and an asset like this will help me quickly learn terminology and basic functions of using the Arduino, as well as teach me the language so that I can use it myself.
The way that code is written in this book is also tailored for beginners, by having each piece of code clearly defined and illustrated, to allow for a deeper understanding of the subject

I am currently reading through the Getting Started chapters which cover the installation of the software required, and explains each part of the board thoroughly.

Project Meeting 2

The aims of the second meeting was to see how much I had progressed with my research for the Major Project. We also discussed my Idea and how it could be more than it was at the last meeting.

Previously I wanted to create a touchless interface that would allow the user to control the actions on screen without touching or moving a mouse.

This was good, but not necessarily something worth the merit of the major project, and nothing that has not been seen before or done better elsewhere.

So the process of modifying and evolving the idea began.

Many ideas were spit-balled but one that suck with me was sound. What if the user made sound? Or rather, what if the users actions made sound.

What if when the user interacted with the piece, it made or recorded a sound file, that could then be collected or sent to other users. 

Other possibilities include creating the project as a kit. Why make something for the usecr, why mot make something, that they make themselves - this is also another possibility, like a digital musical mecano.

I like this Idea and will base the rest of my work and research on creating this, I will still further develop the idea and turn it into a viable project, but before I feel comfortable giving a final proposal for my idea I still want to do some more research.

Arduino

Since its going to be the backbone of my project, I thought I ought to talk a little about the Arduino and what it does.

"ARDUINO IS AN OPEN-SOURCE ELECTRONICS PROTOTYPING PLATFORM BASED ON FLEXIBLE, EASY-TO-USE HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE. IT'S INTENDED FOR ARTISTS, DESIGNERS, HOBBYISTS AND ANYONE INTERESTED IN CREATING INTERACTIVE OBJECTS OR ENVIRONMENTS."

 Arduino can be used to sense its environment through receiving input from a variety of input and affect its surroundings by controlling lights, motors and other mechanisms (in my case it will be sensing where the user hand is).
The Arduino is programmed using its unique programming language which is based on wiring (an open source programming language which is based on elements of C and C++) and the Arduino Development Environment (based on the processing programming language).
Arduino can be used to create stand alone projects, or be used to communicate with software that is running on a computer like Flash, Processing and MaxMSP.
The software used for running Arduino is available for free from the Arduino website.
The Arduino is available under an open source license meaning that its freely adapted by its users.

Source http://arduino.cc/

Something Physical

Before returning to Uni for third year, I looked into what possibilities were available to me for the project.

I could have gone down the path of creating a web app, an interactive website, some kind of media artefact like an interactive video. But I don't want to make something like that. I want my project to be physical, I want the person using it to be able to hold it, see it in front of them and do something with it. Because of this my research has been mostly headed in one direction - Interactivity.

I have done research into interactivity in the past, spoken about how I believe that touch-screens are one of the least interactive pieces of tech out there. So I want to make something a little different, but I also want to make sure that I can do it, and that it can really be something.

Major Project

Project meeting 1

The objective of the first project meeting is to give the proposal for my idea, and discuss the issues that could come up, attempting to resolve them and put me on my way to starting my project.

Objective of meeting : Project proposal

During the meeting I discussed some Ideas that I have had for my major project.

Ideas I discussed were for a 3D touch-less interface that would control an interactive artefact, like those seen at museums or at conventions. The aim of the project was to use what I had learned from my research to create a touch-less interface that I would use to control the mouse, and thus control what the user can see on-screen.

I also discussed my second idea which was to create an image editing website, that offered more than what is currently out there, like allowing the user to modify the images to a greater extent than just changing colour levels and filters.

From this we further discussed the aims of my project and focused on my original idea, after I explained that the image editing website, was merely an idea that I thought worth mentioning.

Issues relating to the first Idea were :

• Hardware required for project
• Complexity of project
• End purpose for Idea
• Expand Idea and research.

Hardware - What do I need to make it?

One of the main things needed to create my touchless interface is an Arduino, which is a single-board microcontroller which is used for creating electronic projects and making them more manageable and accessible to the likes of artists and media developers.

The arduino required is the UNO, which can be used in various ways, one of which is detecting electronic signals, which I will use in my project, and go into further in another post.

The complexity of the project was also discussed. What am I going to make, and can it be better.

The idea of just using the piece of hardware was also discussed, what would the user be doing, what will it do?

The end purpose of the Idea. What will the user get out of using it? What will it finally do and does it serve a purpose?

All these things taken into consideration I will expand on my research and start looking for alternate ways in which my idea can expand.